In the Darkness of Creation
by Celeste Bloodrayne
Summary: Who am I...? I can no longer remember, I no longer know. Only in the darkness can I find who I was...
1. Heart of Despair

**Disclaimer:**

We all know I don't own anything from FF7 or square-enix/soft. No characters. No locations. No vehicles. No Chocobo. All I own is myself, and I'm not even sure about that one.

Oh well, at least this story's mine. See, I can see the silver lining to every Cloud... :-p

Sorry, couldn't help that one :-p

_Don't upset the Lifestream... I want to share the fun too! Wait for meeeeeeeeeee!_

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**Heart of Despair**

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**My hand brushes back his midnight hair. It has grown so long since… now it falls back on his eyes, his wonderful eyes. I wish them to open, with all my heart, one last time. But what God will listen to a sinner such as I? 

His skin is cold and clammy, echoing the coldness lodged deep within my bones. No! I will not think of this, or I will not get anything done tonight. The scissors tremble in my unsteady grasp as I snip off some of the dark locks. Weak, I am so weak… the scissors fall from my hands and clatter on the cold stone floor, slashing the deep silence with its metallic song of pain.

No… no matter. I rise from yet another vision, another dream, another waking nightmare. Prophetic or demonic? I don't know; but every one of them is hell for me as I plunge uncontrollably headlong in time and space, seeing people and events I don't know, hearing the voices, the screams of a thousand disembodied ghouls. Times of war, times of hatred, times of death, times of pain… and always _him_… that green-eyed man, so like myself. My son? _No…_

Tears fall on his face as I do up the fastenings of his shirt. Almost done… next, the gloves. I hesitate over the left one. There is something missing here. I struggle to remember what I had purged from my memories of the visions, in a desperate, futile bid to retain some of my sanity. I had seen…

I go back to the trunk, which had been full of my mentor's belongings. Half of its contents are already spilled on the floor, a mess I had made in my haste to find what I needed. Now I pick up the discarded items of clothing and other objects, putting them reverently in an orderly pile. Yes, reverently, for those were the property of a man I had admired and adored, a man who had died to save me. His only earthly remains, for he had faded into the Lifestream as he had passed away in my arms in this very room. The only ghost of him that remained lay in my painful memories… and in his only son.

In what was left inside the trunk, I find what I had so much trouble remembering: pieces of a golden armour. Yet, unlike other suits of armour, this one was special. Not just in appearance, for the gauntlets ended in wickedly sharp talons, but in value too. This was supposed to have belonged to the Cetra, part of a larger collection that had been lost over the centuries; all that was left lay here. Relics of the past, of a people so closely connected to the Planet they could converse with it. A hysterical giggle bursts out from my throat… the Cetra… the desperate attempts to revive one of them was what had led me to this sorry state, to this abysmal tragedy. How fitting that I should be the one to give back part of what the dream of the Cetra had taken from him.

I take the few armour pieces back with me and continue to clothe him in silence, desperate tears falling heavily from my eyes all the time. Why, oh why am I doing this? Why do I torture myself so? I never wanted to lose any of you… yet, dressing you like your father had dressed that day he had gone back to the Lifestream, is of some comfort to me.

Because both of you have died. Because I have loved both of you. In you, my love, I can see your father. By making you don his clothes, it was as if he had never quite left. In you, he will live on, an illusion and yet, still here.

Did I just whisper "my love"? Yes… I love you. Deeply, so deeply even now that my heart, my mind and my body are no longer wholly mine. I am sorry I was such a fool, so blind to every sign, so stupid. Loss… is what awoke me. I saw myself in a new light, and all the things I had ignored, pushed back, crushed me with their powerful reality... an inverted pyramid coming down on me... You wanted to save me despite all of it. But it was too late, it is too late, my love.

Why did I do what I did?_ Why?_ The pain of shame and remorse tear my heart apart, and I drop to my knees, crying silently as I hug the two last items of clothing to my chest, staining them a deeper red with my tears. And when the storm had passed, when I had no more tears to give as penance, I carry on.

Your hair… so fine beneath my fingers. I caress them one last time before lifting your head to me. I twine the long, scarlet piece of fabric he had often used as a scarf around your forehead. Gently, I place your head back on the hard surface of the operating table and I admire my handiwork; this should keep them out of your eyes.

And last… I lift up the long cape, your father's mantle, already a bit tattered at the edges. This one is red, unlike the one he had worn. I could not find another one like that, so this one will have to do. Maybe more than do. As I close the straps closing it, I watch the effect on your pale, beautiful features. Such a stark contrast… I have always loved bright colours. Now that I think about it, I wonder why I married such an unimaginative, tasteless, self-serving egocentric, mad-

My body falls back as a powerful wave of hatred overwhelms me, a thousand writhing tentacles ripping at my mind, control slipping out of my grasp, I must stop, I must fight, I must. Slash. I need-

A wail of agony echoes, inhuman in quality, for a long time, in the cursed heart of Despair…

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**Author's notes:**

What more can I say, except that I feel almost sorry for her? I hate her, really. But looking at her, I feel sorry, as any other human being could feel sorry for such an afflicted woman.

As Vincent said, she only sees what she wants to. That was her tragic fault.

Her punishment seems... almost out of proportion with her sins. But maybe not. Should she suffer?

She seems to think that it is her only fate, the only thing she deserves.


	2. In the Darkness of Creation

**Disclaimer:**

We all know I don't own anything from FF7 or square-enix/soft. No characters. No locations. No vehicles. No Chocobo. All I own is myself, and I'm not even sure about that one.

Oh well, at least this story's mine. See, I can see the silver lining to every Cloud... :-p

Sorry, couldn't help that one :-p

_Don't upset the Lifestream... I want to share the fun too! Wait for meeeeeeeeeee!_

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**In the Darkness of Creation**

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The first things I see are the blurred lights on the ceiling. I sit up, whimpers of pain escaping from my cracked lips, blood in my mouth. How long have I been like that? I crawl back next to you, trying to ignore the burning pain in my throat, my chest, my head. Scattered, broken apparatus lay on the floor… my fight for mastery of this body had been so violent, it had transferred to the physical world.

So, the time has come… I sit back wearily against the table, unable to lift myself up. I close my eyes and try to remember…

My son… is he the one I have seen, that handsome man with murderous insanity blazing in his cruelly intelligent eyes? How will I ever know, I who have never seen him, who did not even get to name him? Now he is far away from me, in Midgar. My baby... what have I done to you? Your future spreads out in front of me bleak, lonely, painful, desperately yearning for your mother as she yearns for you. And this, this could be my greatest sin. My innocent, angry, beautiful monster child.

My mentor. Was he my first love? I had deep feelings for him, but he was so much more older than I was. Yet, so understanding, so open… the only one who believed in my thesis, the only one who did not laugh. Kindness shining in his strange eyes, peace as he closed them for the last time.

And you. You my love, who has his eyes, yet even more dizzying, more compelling. I rejected you… because I… was afraid to lose you. If you knew about your father, whom you loved and was mourning for, you would hate me. And seeing that love turn to hate would have destroyed me. But it seems I did it quite well on my own. For I am dying. The real me cannot hold on much longer. In her stead, I feel something else, something powerful about to take over. Entity. JENOVA.

Another wave of pain stabs at my mind and I nearly blank out once more. But I hold on. This is the last time we are together, and I want to leave my thoughts, what remains of my heart, here, for you. In a form that will remain unchanged, for it is not living. A true reflection of who I am. So that one day, you might understand. And when you do, you will unfailingly forgive; this is how much I know you, my love. I know your generosity, your strength, your pure heart, all too well. My Shining Prince… You will forgive me…. But I, I will never forgive myself, because of who I am, because of what I did.

I embrace your immobile form, the way I had wanted to embrace your father's. Keeping both of you close to me. But I never had the chance to hold him, he was already gone, and you are not here. Not truly. Just as I am not really here anymore… I… go away, leave this wretched place where all the misery, all the agony in the world reside. I am about to die, but this body will go on living. Where can I go? What place is fit for one such as I now?

Hell. Darkness.

Born of darkness… my feet lead me to the place where everything started. The cave where your father had discovered the trapped essence of the one who now lives in you, the very reason I was able to save you. The very entity that killed him. Again, how strange… Destroyer and Redeemer. Chaos is both, neither, I don't know, I can't remember any more…

Full circle.

I have come back to the cave… back to the place I should never have defiled in my haste, my hunger for recognition and respect, such mundane things. Yet it still looks the same, after all that time. Was it truly so long ago, or is it a trick of my mind again? The lake… the glowing Mako crystals… I sit by the edge of the water and feel at peace… maybe here, Its hold was not so great. Here where the darkness of Creation reigns supreme. I lay back and feel the softly enveloping, soothing water carry me, lifting the weight of invasion, yet demanding something else in return from me. I gladly surrender my body and retreat to that special place left in my mind, the quiet place where I can hide and where I keep safe my most precious memories and feelings. A place that cannot be destroyed, unlike my body, my mind, my soul, my heart… and there, I remember, for this is all that is left to me. The only glimpse of the Promised Land I will ever allow myself.

I am Lucrecia Crescent, scientist, wife, mother, lover, fool, puppet and murderer of those I loved. I will not live to see my son's next birthday, but I will live on here, among the shadows and the ghouls that haunt this world and my memories.

Floating in the Darkness of Creation, a sinner in a white wedding dress.

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**Author's Notes:**

I debated for a long time whether I should include this story in 'After the End', which is my main writing project at the moment, including it in the Past Imperfect arc. However, being given the style of the prose and the lack of more substantial events, I decided to release it as a separate story. Not quite separate though. Think of this as my 'Lost Episode', connected to the main story, but not really part of it.

This short story was, yes, all about Lucrecia and her last moments, in a sense. Because I don't think that Vincent and co. actually saw her in that cave; just a reflection, as in Dirge of Cerberus.

I hated her, but I feel sorry for her now that her story has come to light. Talk about blind hatred.

If there's anything I learnt from her: not to stick your head in the sand; grab a guy like Vincent liike mana from heaven if he comes courting and DON'T let him go, whatever motives you might have to do so in the first place; never agree to experiments on yourself especially if it involves something that's dead or looks like it; get more data before judging and hating, i.e. don't be prejudiced.

So back to 'After the End' now... unless you really burn for me to continue this.


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